Before I Can Fix This Tractor, We Have to Fix Copyright Law - <AUTHOR> http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2016/01/13/copyright_law_shouldn_t_keep_me_from_fixing_a_tractor.html <comment><USER2> If copyright law actually respected a balance between creators and the public, anything under digital restriction technology would be _ineligible_ for it, since there's clearly no intention of adding to the public domain after the period is up. Of course we know it doesn't.

Anyone with half a brain knew the DMCA was a bad idea when it was being "debated". Now it's accepted because we've grown accustomed to workarounds. The only way our society will be fixed is when the reality-incongruent copyright system simply collapses.

<comment><USER3> The part of the DMCA that lets sites and ISPs host/transmit user uploads without being sued on a daily basis is pretty nice.

<comment><USER4> Arguably, the only reason you have to worry about the lawsuits is because of stupid IP laws in the first place though.

<comment><USER5> Copylefts only have teeth because of these "stupid" IP laws. Free Software would be nowhere without copyright. (Yes, you could redistribute binaries, but you could not compel the release of source code for derivatives.)

<comment><USER6> Very interesting point which I'm sure gets overlooked quite often. It seems even Richard Stallman is in favor of preserving the idea of copyright (albeit reducing its duration), which came as a bit of a surprise to me given his otherwise radical views: [http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open- enterprise/could-f...](http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open- enterprise/could-free-software-exist-without-copyright-3568939/)

<comment><USER7> Well one interesting thing about Stallman's "radical" views is that, unless I'm missing something, he doesn't actually advocate any kind of governmental action or laws to support his views (aside from shortening copyright duration as you mentioned). He wants people to _voluntarily_ demand and require Free software; he never talks about having the government force it on people in any way.

Now contrast this to many other people, including the people in favor of stronger IP law, who want the government to enact their views into law.

Now what's really bad is that Stallman is the less pragmatic and realistic of these two camps, because he wants regular people to "see the light" and voluntarily subscribe to his views, which obviously isn't happening (he's been at this for 3 decades now, and while Free software has made traction for sure (e.g. Linux kernel in most smartphones and many other devices), users seem to have less real freedom than ever thanks to locked bootloaders, app stores, etc.). By contrast, the jerks who want to force more DMCA-style silliness and even lengthier (effectively perpetual) copyright terms are more realistic because their approach actually _works_ : we have or are getting all these bad laws.

This somehow reminds me of the quote by Shaw about all progress depending on the unreasonable man.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> People should have the right to tinker with whatever they bought.Telling them only they can, and not an expert 3rd party, make the change is ridiculous as not everyone is a rocket scientist in the respective fields.

If we buy car/tractor/phone/whatever, we should be able to modify it(its hw/sw) however we want. I fail to understand how it breaks copyright. No one is copying and distributing anything. Copyright law should be to protect IP theft. Fix the law instead of having a stupid meeting for exceptions every 3 years. Or copyright yourselves into stone age

<comment><USER9> If we really put this into law in a way that works, what's going to happen is that companies will stop selling people tractors and instead lease them to people for an unlimited amount of time for a one-time payment, or something similar.

<comment><USER10> Which is fine, really, as long as you don't use words "purchase", "buy" and "ownership". Call a lease a lease.

In this scenario, one of two things would happen:

* either there is a genuine need for buying/owning fixable hackable tractors, in which case there will be a market and companies will appear that sell those,

* or there is really no need, and leasing works just fine for tractor users, and it's only us couch-commentators who think we desperately need to repair tractors.

The key point/problem here is that we have a (deliberate) naming confusion: "ownership" should not come with rights restrictions. The same confusion was deliberately introduced with DVDs/BluRays, for example, not to mention computer software. The law should step in and force everyone to truthfully describe what they're selling: a product, a license to do certain things, or a lease.

<comment><USER11> The issue I have with that is that it screws up minorities.

There's likely always going to be a minority that wants or needs to fix their own tractor(or car) or have an independent 3. party fix it.

If that minority is objectively insignificant - well fine. If that minority is 20% of all tractor (or car) owners, the manufacturers can switch to a lease model, and screw over 20% of the customers, those can either give in or give up farming or driving - most won't.

The point is that those 20% might not be enough to sustain a new vendor coming into the market to cater to them. With our current model the 80% that don't care can pay their vendor to fix stuff, the 20% that cares can do it themselves or help support independent mechanics.

Which means with the current model all consumers win, which I'm generally in favor of over a system that maxes profit to big vendors at the expense of minorities.

<comment><USER8> 20% market share is significant enough for any new manufacturer. Provided their product doesn't lack in quality it will have the 20% disgruntled customers and gain more as their product reputation increases.

What you described could happen, if tractor market is a monopoly or if all manufacturers collude, which shouldn't be allowed to happen. American broadband situation is a good example when there is monopoly due to lack of choices. They can price whatever they want for broadband and treat you royally when you contact their customer service because you can't switch ISP.

Like in the extreme case of price hike of a pill to $700, that is what happens if copyright law stays the way it is now.

Current situation is not a win for customers or the general progress. There is a lot of room for improvement.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > Turns out, copyright law is the thing that was broken all along.

While copyright law is being used as a legal wedge, the problem isn't just copyright. These arguments are often framed as being about copyright because obscures the other half of the problem, which is how these arguments ignore _doctrine of first sale_ [1].

Case law has been confusing in this area, with cases such as Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc supporting the power grab where "licensing" overrules first sale. Other cases such as UMG v. Augusto reaffirmed that the original author's rights ended at the first sale. In our future that obviously includes software in many, many products, we either strongly reaffirm the right of first sale or we give up ownership[2] to whomever owns the software inside our products.

The DMCA is only part of the problem; this attack on first sale - an attack on the open exchange of culture[4] - has been going on a _lot_ longer than the digital computer has existed.

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First- sale_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine)

[2] obviously, the actual copying of the software - instead of repair, resale, or other non-copying[3] uses

[3] if time-shifting is a valid use for betamax (Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc.), then any incidental, temporary copies of software that art part of normal use is fair use. The nonsense that a license is needed because a copy is made in RAM is patent nonsense.

[4] [https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_stran...](https://www.ted.com/talks/larry_lessig_says_the_law_is_strangling_creativity)

<comment><USER13> I'm really with you on this one - getting angry at Copyright's protections being used as a weapon against First Sale is a distracting tangent. Even here with a strong tech audience, and plenty of back-stories and examples even non- technical folks can comprehend, as in iTunes/iBook/etc is selling a licence of a copy and can revoke that copy under select circumstances, IIRC.

If I was to come up with an comparable situation, I think it would be people demanding a "No Smoking on the Beach!" ordinance because of the cigarette butts littering the beach, when there's already a law against littering on the beach, but isn't being properly enforced.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> Somewhat related, there's an interesting theory that the Germany industry only advanced so fast in the 19th century because German publishers deliberately ignored that new-fangled copyright thing, thus allowing information to spread fast and cheap, while the obedience of copyright stifled progress in Great Britain:

[http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no- copyright-l...](http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/no-copyright- law-the-real-reason-for-germany-s-industrial-expansion-a-710976.html)

</comment><comment><USER15> I'm curious why freedom-to-tinker is not considered free-expression in the USA, clear and simple. I mean we pride ourselves on it.

As long as the item is purchased (owned) and it is for personal use and warranties are clearly voided, what business is it otherwise to the manufacturer after they make the sale.

Of course they can get around this by never actually selling the tractor and only leasing it to farmers, then the farmers are screwed because they don't own it - until Chinese clones show up.

<comment><USER16> Our government does not take pride in it. People who can fix things or build things themselves are a danger to corporate interests, so hackers are considered to be dangerous criminals. Nobody gives a fuck if that means we're destroying our own future, because that's our children's problem.

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Feels like the best approach is to encourage farmers to boycot at least one of the major tractor providers until these restrictions are removed. No new laws or lawsuits needed -- just some collective action.

<comment><USER18> Which provider do you propose we boycott, and which one do we use in the mean time? JohnDeere, CASE, New Holland etc dominate the industry, and no farmer is going to (let alone can afford to) stop using their current equipment, and spend millions of dollars (it would easily cost us this much) buying different brand machinery. Let alone dealing with the hassles that come with swapping from one stream of ag software to another.

What's most likely to happen is farmers will just keep modifying their machinery at will. It's already common place to chip your engine, or to physically modify machines/implements to improve performance or your production methods. I don't see that changing anytime soon.

<comment><USER19> I think what the parent was suggesting is an arbitrary boycott for all future purchases. In other words, if they all use the same tactics, then make an example out of one to scare the others.

It sounds vindictive and harsh, until you consider that's exactly how the legal system is used all the time.

<comment><USER20> In the 1990s, when Smith and Wesson made a deal with the Clinton Administration, gun buyers and sellers did something similar.

We stopped buying Smith and Wesson firearms and their profits dropped like a stone. They thought that the increased business from the Federal government would make up for lost civilian sales but those Federal sales weren't what they were expecting and the civilian boycott was bigger than they expected.

It got so bad for the company that the owners had to sell it to get out from under the deal.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> Seems like somebody does a "story" on this every 9 months or so.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414211](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9414211)

<comment><USER19> It will continue being a story until copyright law is corrected.

<comment><USER22> It's going to be quite a while, if ever. I can sort of see the internet generation loosening copyright a little bit here and there, but then I can also see them not doing that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> Hmmm...

> By the time we got an exemption to repair tractors, the Copyright Office > said that only the farmer, and not her mechanic, could tinker with the > software.

So this part of the issue is that you can only tinker with machines you own yourself? Then how about this:

1) Farmer sells tractor to mechanic for $1.

2) Mechanic repairs tractor.

3) Mechanic sells tractor to farmer for $1 + cost of repairs.

</comment><comment><USER24> Look, if as per the article you need an army of lawyers to fix your tractor, that should be your first—no probably 10th—clue that your problem is not copyright law, but the idea that copyright law is something that you need to respect and obey.

You are always free to withdraw your consent from having your life be ruled by what a handful of people you've never met (and whose names you don't even know) have decided about how you and your community needs to conduct itself.

<comment><USER25> > You are always free to withdraw your consent from having your life be ruled > by what a handful of people you've never met

No, actually you are not free to do that. You can declare it, but it doesn't change anything in practice.

<comment><USER26> Whether it changes anything likely depends how you do it. For example, writing a letter to the editor may not change much, while renouncing citizenship would likely change a lot in practice.

<comment><USER25> But to renounce your citizenship you have to have another place to live. Unless you create your own country, or go meet the entire government, you're still "ruled by what a handful of people you've never met".

<comment><USER26> One could emigrate to or create a micronation or microstate. Sealand is a fairly well known micronation. The Conch Republic [0] is another, and is an example of (on multiple occasions) withdrawing consent from being ruled by the outside government.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conch_Republic)

<comment><USER27> Sealand, really? Who'd want to live like that? And how'd you finance it?

<comment><USER26> Someone wants to live like that, or it wouldn't exist.

<comment><USER27> A single caretaker. Not even the self-proclaimed regent lives there. Yours is hardly a convincing argument.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Let's rewind. VHS won because of porn. Listening to music is now a buffet style affair because of Napster. AC kicked DC in the nuts and the public applauded because it was better and it could.

I respect those working to improve the system from within, but also respectfully point out that change of the sort this article is talking about comes from the outside. Revolutions all have one thing in common. Out with the old, and in with the new. Copyright law is old, it is administered by old people, and it is kept in place by the old guard. Open source hardware, distributed open source software development, 3D printing, crowd funding, and on and on, these are all new.

You can attempt to evolve (fix) the old rules, you'll fail. It seems to me to be a safer bet to simply begin playing the new game, even though the rules are not totally worked out yet, even though people say it isn't legit, even though there are no referees to call foul or panel of judges to provide approval and award medals. Out with the old, and in with the new.

<comment><USER29> VHS didn't win because of pornography, it won because it was cheaper and was actually a superior format in certain respects.

Listening to music is now "buffet-style" because of iTunes, not Napster. Napster died.

AC kicked DC because the latter was financially non-viable.

<comment><USER28> Re: VHS, granting that I was speaking in superlatives and that VHS might be one of one of multiple primary influences, here is a quote from an industry insider stating the same idea [1].

Re: AC/DC, DC was financially viable. You might notice that we still make use of DC, where it does much close quarter nut kicking. DC was financially uncompetitive over distance, but not because of magic finance. It was uncompetitive because someone had to buy, build, and install the associated hardware to make it work over long distances. AC required much less in that arena, because of the technology, not magical finance. AC as a technology was more viable then DC as a technology over distance because the technologist, not the banker, endowed it with such awesome, nut kicking powers. And nut kick it did.

[1] [http://www.macworld.com/article/1050627/pornhd.html](http://www.macworld.com/article/1050627/pornhd.html)

<comment><USER7> DC was not "financially viable" at all. DC was completely unworkable because you had to have a power plant on every city block! It was impossible to transmit DC power over any distance because the losses over the wire were too great. You could use a higher voltage to mitigate that, but then you have high voltage entering peoples' homes and a greater potential for fire, plus it's harder to make devices (light bulbs, household motors) which work reliably at higher voltages.

The fundamental problem with DC is that, in 190x, there's no practical way to convert it from one voltage to another. That's why AC won the "current wars", plain and simple. Stupid Edison really thought it would make sense to have a power plant on every city block, but obviously that dream went nowhere, for good reason. With AC power, you use a "transformer" to step the voltage up to much higher levels for long-distance transmission, then another transformer to step it back down at the point-of-use. Higher voltage has much lower losses because the losses, according to Ohm's Law, are P=R _I^2, where P is the power loss, R is the resistance (which we 'll assume to be fixed for a given length of wire), and I is the current. Since P=VI (power = voltage _ current), stepping up the voltage means you have proportionately lower current, for the same amount of power, and as you can see from the first equation, the losses go up with the _square_ of the current. This is why long-distance transmission lines use scarily-high voltages (some over 1 megavolts).

These days, we have ways of converting DC to different voltages using modern electronics and transistors, but these did not exist in the late 1800s and early 1900s. There was simply no way back then to make an electric generation and transmission system of any scale without the AC devices invented by Nikola Tesla.

<comment><USER28> That's exactly what happened. Initially DC was the _only_ option because Mr. Edison personally bankrolled the first electric grids which required building power plants per section of the grid. Additionally, DC was replacing engine based industrialized factories, which indeed had on premise steam or coal engines, and so installing a power plant for just that factory would have made perfect sense. At the time particular time, granted very soon after, AC was not viable. Saying "not at all" is a bit global of a statement considering it contradicts history.

<comment><USER7> Ok, granted, compared to on-premise steam or coal engines or waterwheels, Edison's crappy DC was viable.

AC wasn't viable at that time because it hadn't been invented and deployed yet. It wasn't intuitively obvious and it took a brilliant Serbian electrical engineer to invent it (or rather, the machines to implement it; AC was theorized before Tesla) before it became viable.

However, as a competitor to AC power systems spanning whole cities and interconnected in a nationwide grid, DC wasn't even remotely viable.

<comment><USER28> How can something be compared as a competitor to spmething else that hasn't even been invented yet? It's difficult arguing the point when you keep regressing back to historically impossible what-ifs.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>


Google Transparency Report shows rise in data requests - <AUTHOR> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21169162 <comment><USER2> Google's blog post: [http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/transparency- report-w...](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/transparency-report-what- it-takes-for.html)

</comment><comment><USER3> I may have missed this, but where is 'Other' defined for a reason to request this information? It seems to happen a lot in the U.S.

<comment><USER2> "Other" is as compared to search warrants and subpoenas, i.e. it's describing the vehicle of the request rather than the reason for the request. It's defined, loosely, in a tooltip: "Includes court orders issued under ECPA by a judge and other court-issued legal process."</comment></comment>


Making Uber More Affordable for All New Yorkers - <AUTHOR> https://newsroom.uber.com/us-new-york/making-uber-more-affordable-for-all-new-yorkers/ <comment><USER2> Uber gave CT a 20% discount. I took a ride last night, and the driver was complaining that he just does not make enough money with the 20% discount. He is planning to stop driving shortly and do something else.

One of his big complaints is that the smallest possible fair is around $5-$6 and Uber takes around $2.80 he said so he only gets $3 for short rides. $3 is not worth his time.</comment>


Why the (US) Rich Are Getting Richer - <AUTHOR> http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67046/robert-c-lieberman/why-the-rich-are-getting-richer

<comment><USER2> This is just another in a series intellectually feeble articles on the wealth divide. Compare this recent study from Canada: [http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/rise-c...](http://www.policyalternatives.ca/publications/reports/rise- canadas-richest-1)

Both of these pieces offer no in-depth analysis of the data and almost no international perspective. Without offering any justification, they quickly point the blame at the typical scapegoats of "the bankers who caused the crash", high CEO pay, and tax rates. They rely on broad and readily available statistics, and haven't done any genuinely new groundwork.

I'd like to see a better study which considers these factors:

* Choosing a meaningful dividing line (Why choose to compare the top 1%, and not some other fraction?)

* Breaking down sources of income (Investment income, regular pay, stock option grants)

* Breaking down income by industry (Medical, law, engineering professionals; public servants; finance professionals; entrepreneurs; corporate managers; entertainment figures)

* Detailed comparison of wealth divides in other countries

If anyone can point us to this sort of study, please speak up!

<comment><USER3> Yes, it's feeble. The article does not connect some of the trends it discusses to the problem of income inequity.

For example, there's no discussion of how increased taxes will fix income inequity nor is it obvious why it will. Gates, Buffet and other superrich got to where they are through long term capital appreciation. Increasing taxes will have an impact on them, but they will still be superrich.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I thought it was because the rest of us were just lazy freeloaders or otherwise morally undeserving!

<comment> T-R Sarcasm? Not Sarcasm? Purposefully ambiguous?

<comment><USER5> From where I sit, it's very clearly sarcasm.

<comment> T-R That was my initial thought, but I'm gonna have to cite Poe's Law on this one.

<comment><USER4> Oh wow... I'm flattered.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Something I've long been curious about, as an academic who is removed from the startup culture and never really gave a damn about getting rich.

Suppose that the (US) marginal tax rate on income or capital gains over $500K was raised to 75%.

How much would this affect entrepreneurs' willingness to work their asses off on their startups?

<comment><USER7> To be honest, probably nothing. Rich people are pretty much pros at operating tax shelters, which explains the famous Buffet quote about how he pays a lower tax rate than his secretary.

<comment><AUTHOR> No, it's better/worse than that. Long-term capital gains (held more than one year) are taxed at 15% for someone like Buffet. He paid a lower rate (17.7% combined short-term and long-term) on taxes than his secretary _without trying to avoid taxes_.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Getting tired of the inequality articles.

<comment><USER9> This coming from someone who lives in a city (Milford, NJ) with a median family income of $62,167 USD that is 97% white. Ouch.

(Also, today I learned about HackerNewsers from your profile. Very cool site!)

<comment><USER8> If you're expecting to get me upset by looking up my demographics, you're wrong. I wouldn't have posted that if I cared. But it's funny how much you think you know about me and how wrong you are.

For example, I don't live in Milford, NJ. That is, in fact, my mailing address, and if you plug that into your GPS you will indeed arrive at my house, but the world is slightly more complicated than that -- as is the topic of the OP. I'll leave it to you to puzzle out how both of those might be.

Your statement about Milford being "97% white" reveals more about you than it does me, I think. It reveals that, for some reason, you believe that race is important; why else would you go looking for the racial makeup of my (purported) community? It reveals little about me, since you'll find that (assuming you're using Wikipedia's numbers) my household would make up over 3% of the town's non-white population (if I did indeed live in Milford).

I happen to fall into the largest age cohort cited. And if you knew my address, you'd also see that my property is actually smaller than the minimum zoned acreage, being grandfathered in.

What the heck does any of this have to do with (a) equality of Americans; or (b) the fact that we've seen so darned many of these articles recently on HN?

<comment><USER9> Sorry, my intent was not to belittle or enrage. I was merely pointing out the fact that, based upon provided data, you, as a developer, are quite far removed from the lower end of the income spectrum. Your comment seemed to give a vibe of "I don't care about this because it doesn't affect me and the fact that I am even hearing about it is pissing me off." My apologies if that is not the case.

(Disclaimer: I am not from the USA.) White people make up the majority of the population in the northeastern USA. Minorities tend to be poorer. That's a statistical fact. A developer in a white town is _probably_ doing better than most people around him.

It's an important issue. I hope there are more articles about this topic. They're more interesting than articles about del.iciou.us being killed by Yahoo.

<comment><USER10> > Sorry, my intent was not to belittle or enrage. I was merely pointing out > the fact that, based upon provided data, you, as a developer, are quite far > removed from the lower end of the income spectrum.

Bite me.

You don't know anything about where he comes from or how he got where he is now. Heck - you don't even know that he's not one of the saintly 3%.

You're just looking to claim some high ground so you can start a pissing contest.

> (Disclaimer: I am not from the USA.)

Perhaps you should refrain from comments that depend on knowledge that you don't have.

<comment><USER9> Do I really need to have been born in the USA to be able to read published statistical data about the population? That seems to be an odd dependency.

As I said, my intent was not to belittle, nor is it to "win" any kind of contest. The desire to be part of a winning team has turned the tide from reason and logic to emotion in modern discourse (and especially politics). I don't care if I don't "win" as long as I'm forced, at a minimum, to reevaluate my position and beliefs.

Also, what do you mean by "saintly"?

<comment><USER10> > Do I really need to have been born in the USA to be able to read published > statistical data about the population?

I'm not disputing your ability to read. I'm pointing out that your conclusions were faulty. Was I wrong to assume that more knowledge might have helped you avoid the error?

> As I said, my intent was not to belittle, nor is it to "win" any kind of > contest.

Then you should work on ensuring that your intent is reflected in what you write.

> The desire to be part of a winning team has turned the tide from reason and > logic to emotion in modern discourse (and especially politics).

Projection....

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> Author's reasons for phenomenon in brief: (1) tax system not progressive enough; (2) govt hard on unions.

</comment><comment><USER12> | Income inequality in the United States is higher than in any other advanced industrial democracy and by conventional measures comparable to that in countries such as Ghana, Nicaragua, and Turkmenistan. It breeds political polarization, mistrust, and resentment between the haves and the have-nots and tends to distort the workings of a democratic political system in which money increasingly confers political voice and power.

Queue the libertarian rhetoric to rationalize this with another meritocracy (blame the poor) argument.

<comment><USER13> How about the Paul Graham argument that income inequality is not a problem if it means that everyone's standard of living is raised?

<http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html>

<comment><USER14> Income inequality can be ignored (by politicians) until a large segment of the population cannot find jobs and can't afford food/gas/healthcare. Oh wait, we're there.

Census estimates suggest 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty

[http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns- ap-u...](http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-ap-us-census- poverty,0,7047443.story)

1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps

[http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/21/news/economy/food_stamps/ind...](http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/21/news/economy/food_stamps/index.htm)

Labor Force Participation Rate Drops To Fresh 25 Year Low, Adjusted Unemployment Rate At 11.7%

[http://www.zerohedge.com/article/labor-force- participation-r...](http://www.zerohedge.com/article/labor-force- participation-rate-drops-fresh-25-year-low-adjusted-unemployment-rate-117)

<comment><USER10> > Census estimates suggest 1 in 6 Americans live in poverty

Which definition of poverty are we using?

I have two. According to one, 90% of Americans live in poverty. According to the other, less than 1% do. Which one is correct?

Note that the 1% is based on world-standards for poverty....

> 1 in 7 Americans rely on food stamps

And taxing rich people more is going to change that how?

Govt aid is basically a no-work/low-pay job. How is reducing the amount of money in the private sector going to put more people to work?

Note that reducing the amount of money in the private sector doesn't necessarily increase the amount of money in the public sector. The US govt has never managed to collect more than 20% of GDP in taxes, so if your plan assumes that we can, you get to explain why this time will be different.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Vim is a Game - <AUTHOR> http://alexanderw.xyz/essays/vim/ <comment><USER2> > I was looking forward to text editing. Not programming -- text editing.

I have felt exactly this way about vim editing.</comment>


The new Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscriptions - <AUTHOR> https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/30/introducing-new-microsoft-365-personal-family-subscriptions/ <comment><AUTHOR> It's been fascinating watching Satya turn Microsoft into a cloud services company over the last few year and this is another great example again turning an enterprise experience into a consumer one.

</comment><comment><USER2> > Microsoft 365 builds on the foundation of Office infusing new artificial > intelligence (AI), rich content and templates, and cloud-powered experiences

How do you opt out of this?</comment>


A Vaccine with a Poison Pill - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-05-22/a-vaccine-with-a-poison-pill <comment><USER2> Podcast link of article - [https://anchor.fm/talking-money- stuff/episodes/A-Vaccine-Wit...](https://anchor.fm/talking-money- stuff/episodes/A-Vaccine-With-a-Poison-Pill-eee11c)</comment>


Annie Dookhan and the Massachusetts Drug Lab Crisis - <AUTHOR> http://badchemistry.wbur.org/2013/05/19/annie-dookhan-and-the-massachusetts-drug-lab-crisis <comment><USER2> Related article with ongoing discussion: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10482701](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10482701)</comment>


Lifestyle plugins for BitBar – Put anything in your Mac OS X menu bar - <AUTHOR> https://getbitbar.com/plugins/Lifestyle#.Wx1zs_ozpTE.hackernews <comment><USER2> I find it interesting how much stuff people like putting in their menu bar. Maybe it's because I have a laptop with a small screen, but I always like mine to be neat and tidy, with only a couple of items I use every day. Most people I know have a bunch of junk like Adobe or Dropbox or Norton in theirs, though, and I doubt they click on any of those ever. There's also a proliferation of so-called menu-bar apps.

<comment><USER3> I'm the same, in fact, I use an app which aims to do the opposite to BitBar: it's called BarTender, and it lets you hide any menu bar items under a single drop down. This includes items added by the system (e.g. network status, Siri).

Although I suppose you could combine BitBar and BarTender by using BitBar to add some non-standard items and BarTender to hide them until you decide to expand them.

<comment><USER4> Checking this out now! Hate the clutter. Thanks for the tip.

<comment><USER4> Installed. If you were here I'd give you a dollar. Best ever.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> Love BitBar. It's SO easy to create little widgets in the menu bar. Have my own countdowns for days in the quarter etc.

</comment><comment><USER6> To anyone trying to get more focussed and less distracted, stay away from anything like this! Keep it lean, keep it clean.

<comment><USER7> And, presumably, stop reading Hacker News comments...

<comment><USER8> Too much free time between Android builds...

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> And for those of us running Gnome, there is p-e-w/argos[1]. Completely BitBar compatible, provided that the script don't use any OSX specific code.

1\. [https://github.com/p-e-w/argos](https://github.com/p-e-w/argos)

</comment><comment><USER10> I just ran across BitBar trying to find a competent utility to simply display my currently-played iTunes track in the menu bar (this turns out to be shockingly hard to find).

It turned out to be trivial to modify one of the existing BitBar plugins to do exactly what I wanted, and very nice to have that functionality tailored. This is a really nice app.

</comment><comment><USER11> I love apps like this. I use an app that puts my external IP in my menu bar. Perfect for knowing what VPN I'm on at a quick glance. Bartender to hide all the crap.</comment>


It's Time to Get Over That Stored Procedure Aversion You Have - <AUTHOR> http://rob.conery.io/2015/02/21/its-time-to-get-over-that-stored-procedure-aversion-you-have/

<comment><USER2> This just seems to be a very ranty way of saying that identifying the boundary where separation of concerns takes place is difficult.

It seems almost a tautology to me that _of course_ you want to put all the data-related functionality in the database and _of course_ you want the application business logic to be as small as possible and not enforce data integrity at the application level.

But a lot of this perspective comes from the long tail of hard-won experience and is not obvious to a lot of developers.</comment>


U.S. govt, tech industry discuss using location data to combat coronavirus - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-house-location-data-coronavirus/ <comment><USER2> The interesting thing about ideas like this is that they reveal how authoritarianism during times of stability does a terrible amount of damage during times of crisis.

This is the sort of problem that _could_ be solved in a better world; collecting location data to find interactions between people _would_ allow you to get them tested faster and prevent a disease from spreading. But it simply can't be done in this country primarily because everyone has the _entirely reasonable_ fear that the feds want this power for nefarious reasons and will never give it up - and they're probably right.

If we had a society where privacy was an absolute right, and civic trust in our community organizations and institutions was built up over time, during a crisis like this one we could come together and find agreement on a way of providing this data to a responsible institution that would use it only for the purpose of saving lives and then delete it when the crisis was over. And they'd lose access to future data at that point too. Anyone who still didn't trust the communal institutions could opt out, but the point of building up this trust is that it makes people want to work together and feel safe doing so.

We're so far from that in this country that we're not only paranoid about privacy issues, it seems altogether most likely that our secret agencies are actively planning to exploit this crisis to be able to spy on us in the future.

<comment><USER3> I've regressed to my cynical default in the past few days, but "a large institution that I would trust with this authority" sounds like pure fantasy.

<comment><USER2> I don't know, maybe it is. Maybe the politics of our world simply are that cynical and won't allow for such a thing to exist. But I guess I'm hoping it isn't. I'm trying to imagine how a _non-authoritarian_ institution would work; it wouldn't have the "authority" to compel anyone to turn over their data, but just about everyone would have enough trust in the community and its decision making process to be okay with it.

What I guess I'm asking is ... what if the organizations we built looked more like the WHO, and less like the CIA?

<comment><USER4> Personally, I think the only way we will retake our privacy is when hobby level, readily available hardware, software, and 3d printable parts enable hobbyists to create "good enough" phones with encryption and privacy options that won't exist in mass market phones.

Then an enterprising startup can deliver marked-up, preassembled devices, then people might have privacy again.

<comment><USER5> The goalposts on "good enough" keep moving. When everyone else has a holographic direct-to-eye refraction display, people are going to be as disappointed in a 2020-level smartphone as people were with OpenMoko devices, which still had a pressure-sensitive touch screen with a plastic stylus when the iPhone has just come out with its relatively massive capacitive multitouch display.

<comment><USER6> I was disappointed with the OpenMoko for many reasons, but the screen wasn't one.

Things like it wouldn't read my sim (bug 666), the stylus was almost required, but there was no place to put it, audio issues, sleep/wake issues, poor battery indication and tricky to charge from a flat battery.

Sure, the screen was kind of small, but the resolution was high, so you could claim hidpi before Apple invented it?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Well, buckle up folks.

Android's GLS service has an absolute insane data ingestion pipeline consisting of sensor fusion from GPS, Wifi, accelerometer, barometric data, and cell tower locations. It's accurate to within meters, can locate you inside buildings, can count your footsteps, and even knows what floor you've been on.

It's been used by Google to tune its indoor WiFi maps and improve location accuracy for _years_.

Anyone who has high location accuracy mode turned on and has Google Play Services has _already_ been unwittingly uploading "anonymized" location data multiple times an hour for literally years. In many cases such anonymized data is accurate to within a meter and contains accelerometer data that can literally count your footsteps and determine if you are walking, running, riding in a car, etc. Anonymized GLS data is what informs traffic congestion and many other "non scary" services.

Google believes the negotiation of a 7-day expiration of randomized UID is sufficient anonymization to meet the legal definition in all of its markets. It _might be_ right about the legal definition. It's wrong if it believes it actually anonymizes data. Google believes a popup notifying that high accuracy mode may upload "anonymized usage data" to Google's services constitutes informed consent according to GDPR. _I think_ the EU would disagree if they knew the technical capabilities of Google's infrastructure.

Google's internal privacy review system believes that they are safeguarding the privacy of its users. Their model does not take into account NSLs or interference from intelligence agencies. And it absolutely did not foresee this.

The surveillance dystopia is here, folks, and your Android phone won't do anything noticeably different. They'll flip some switches in their ingestion pipeline and have an insanely powerful draconian surveillance network instantly.

It's over.

<comment><USER8> > has already been unwittingly uploading

Majority have been doing it unwittingly, true. But you do get services in return. I actually know about the collection, and in case of Google, in my opinion I get compensated in a reasonable way. I'm contributing to wigle and osm as well to counteract the monopoly, but in practice - it's worth it. We could attach some risk to everything and consider what would happen if gov abused it, but we'll all have some threshold of saying "I'm ok with it in exchange for participation in modern society" (it can be re-evaluated later of course)

The alternative is to not accept any of the risks and live in a disconnected commune. Which is ok if that's what you're after, but... that won't apply to most people.

<comment><USER9> I don't want to call you out personally, but I absolutely hate how servile this attitude is.

Its as if you can't even imagine a world where you get some of these benefits but where your privacy is protected either legally or technically. Both are totally possible, but your lazy attitude about it is part of the problem.

One of these days all this data we've just been casually giving out is going to be used for a pogrom or some other terrible thing and then it will be too late for this facile "the benefits outweigh the costs" bullshit.

<comment><USER10> > _it will be too late for this facile "the benefits outweigh the costs" > bullshit. _

No it won't, because the horrible, but realistic, take is that the benefits indeed will outweigh the costs. For all the people who are not targets of the pogroms.

Horrible as it sounds, a lot of people don't really care about things that happen to other people. Even if those other people die. Especially when the other people are not like them.

Sometimes I wonder whether apathy is the true root of evil, not really money. I'm no different, I'm guilty of that tendency towards apathy as well. I'm certainly up in arms about privacy, but I really don't get the same way about women's issues. Nor black guys being gunned down by cops in their apartments. I may lament those situations, but I certainly don't donate money or time to those and other causes.

Point is, root of the issue is that no one cares. Everyone has their own concerns. Which is democracy. And that's great.

But inherent in that environment is a kind of built in "divide and conquer" quality that provides political and economic élites a convenient control mechanism.

<comment><USER11> If blacks or women suffer from state suppression it would be natural to care for privacy too.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> 'in moments of crisis, people are willing to hand over a great deal of power to anyone who claims to have a magic cure—whether the crisis is a financial meltdown or, as the Bush administration would later show, a terrorist attack' (Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine)

<comment><USER13> Speaking of Klein, she'll need to add a few elements to her Pandemic Shock Doctrine script:

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know- script-...](https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/03/17/we-know-script-naomi- klein-warns-coronavirus-capitalism-new-video-detailing-battle)

<comment><USER12> The updated edition should contain a special chapter on the underground agenda from Davos or whatever G meetup

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> The government tracking everyone's location all the time would be/is a gross infringement on privacy. The government tracking everyone's location for a limited time period in order to curb a deadly epidemic seems much more reasonable. The difficulty is trusting them to give back that power when the crisis is over. If not for the experience of the Patriot Act, I'd be more inclined to give the benefit of the doubt there.

Still, if this were done in a truly open way, and the criteria for ending the program were clearly specified at its outset, it's something I could support. Looking at the Chinese response, advanced and extensive contact tracing has allowed them to restart significant commerce in areas where initial outbreaks have been controlled through social distancing. Doing the same here might not only save lives, but also livelihoods.

Of course I would be nervous about the potential for overreach, misuse, and acclimatization. But if the allowable uses and time-frame were set into law, perhaps those concerns would be outweighed by the potential benefits.

<comment><USER15> They could make an app and work with Apple/Google to have it auto-installed, but where the app can be uninstalled by the user if they wish to opt out.

<comment><USER16> ... and sunset this so once it's cured, remove the capability whatsoever. But it wont

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> They already have a mechanism to do this -- it's called a John Doe (wiretap) warrant.

What they _really_ want is full take -- the complete location movements of the US population. This would be useful for COVID-19 tracking ... and authoritarian control.

<comment><USER18> When they pass the laws that require us to keep our powered-on phones on our persons at all times, we'll know that they've perfected the Angel Teeth.

<comment><USER17> If you're following HK/China, you know that they are already doing this tracking. Visitors and quarantined people are being required to do this in HK by a number of reports.

[https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong- tell...](https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Hong-Kong- tells-30-families-to-wear-tracking-wristband-or-face-jail)

Up until the virus, they were mandating no face covering so their all seeing surveillance camera network could see your face.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Many governments already track and save all communication in a big graph database - in order to know who communicates with whom - so they can find "terrorists". It's just that in some places "terrorist" means people, journalists, etc, that oppose the corrupt government. So the government already know who communicates with who. And now they also want to feed everyone's location to that database, so they can know everyone who has ever met with or talked to a "terrorist". Where I live you can be sentences to wear a tracking device instead of a prison sentence. Now everyone will be prisoners.

<comment><USER20> A terrorist is whoever the government says they are, I think it's time for us to wake up to the reality of things.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> I have been somewhat conflicted/despairing about Taiwan's response (only 77 cases and 1 death as of right now, 2020-Mar-17, despite reslly cloze ties with China and an almost equally early onset) since I read this: [https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689) a couple of weeks ago. Paragraph 2 is especially instructive. I have historically been dead against the type of cross referencing and identification this article discusses, but their capability for pulling multiple disparate sources together to allow tracing, categorization and enforced tracking of all individuals is massively impressive. We really need to either figure out a way to execute on these capabilities without revoking privacy, or else accept that some granting of privacy (whether to Google or another entity) will be inevitable.

<comment><USER22> I've been posting that link in various comments on the web over the last week, it's a very interesting article. But Taiwan is not the US; they have shown a very healthy trend _away_ from authoritarianism over the last 33 years since the lifting of Martial Law in 1987 (and the 40 years of 'White Terror' [1] that preceded it).

Also, on the question of authoritarianism, I think there is a case for greater tolerance of it during a _defensive_ war, where a nation is battling for its survival. And I think a pandemic can be characterised as a defensive war against an invisible, completely merciless enemy. Not to say that blanket authoritarianism should be allowed but measures that make sense and help in the battle should be shown greater tolerance _for a limited duration_. Of course this is the whole idea behind (duration limited) emergency powers legislation. Going back to Taiwan, their 40 years of martial law also shows the risk of abuse, however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, democratically elected government).

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_\(Taiwan\))

<comment><USER23> > however I would describe the KMT as an invading power, not a native, > somewhat trusted authority (as is more the case with their present, > democratically elected

A Taiwanese friend mentioned that the majority of indigenous peoples of Taiwan support the KMT rather than the DPP (the current party in power).

I suppose for them, all Han Taiwanese are "colonists" but the KMT gave them more benefits.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> What good is phone data if they don't even administer sufficient virus tests? They should first tackle the low-hanging fruit that _doesn 't_ involve mass surveillance, to show good intentions, before being allowed access to such dangerous data.

</comment><comment><USER25> I suggested something similar but based on using Bluetooth and running an app locally. This would be more sensitive to proximity while potentially giving away slightly less data about exactly where you are, and easier to opt out of, either temporarily (while at home say) or completely.

There could also be the option of logging nearby Bluetooth addresses locally only and looking up an online database of infected owners, or submitting collected data online to allow aggregation and preemptive notifications of potential exposure before symptoms show

<comment><USER26> I was thinking along similar lines. Maybe it's possible to use BLE for this (don't know if the standard PXP profiles would be applicable or you'd need something else).

You could also have app-level 24-hour rolling identifiers to prevent non- infected people's contacts from being correlated over time, even locally—if that would make people more comfortable using such an app. (The app would have to keep track of all its previous identifiers; if the user is found to be infected, all their previous identifiers would be marked as such in the database.)

Some challenges off the top of my head:

\- What polling rate is needed? (How do disease experts define a "contact"?) What's the battery impact?

\- What fraction of the population has BLE-capable phones?

\- What fraction of the population keeps their phones physically on their person as they go about their day?

\- Can distance be roughly inferred from RSSI? Does the mapping of RSSI to distance vary much depending on the transmitting radio / phone model?

\- If you live in an apartment, you might be identified as a "contact" of your neighbor even if you never breathe the same air, etc.

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Meanwhile in Taiwan:

in 2004 the authorities planned how to respond to this crisis, and got the necessary rights. Then they spent 15 years not abusing these rights, and now used them effectively (including phone data).

The middle part is important there, the one about "15".

</comment><comment><USER28> Israel started using cellphone tracking as of today. An in stable (transitional) government got an approval from the justice department. The tracking is based on location / cell data stored at the mobile operators and should be used for tracking people around a positive covid person to send text messages asking them to get into their home to a lock down for 14 days. Cellphone data is retrospective of course.

However, once asked to go home. Enforcement will used current location data.

<comment><USER29> The _interim_ government (_not_ an actual government), which is headed by a criminal who has been evading his trials on several corruption scandals for several years, has given itself approval to access people's geo-location data, phone conversation history, browsing history etc. using some covid-19-related excuse.

The government had initially tried to have parliament authorize this measure - but the "secret services" committee, discussing the matter, did _not_ approve immediately, requiring more information. So the government just used one of the draconian powers it has... thanks to anti-Palestinian legislation.

The tracking will _not_ be limited to covid-19 patients.

It is a total travesty.

It should be said in fairness that the legal infrastructure for this has been laid over a decade ago with the "Big Brother" law and the General Security Service law. People were silent about it then, and now the chickens have come home to roost.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Already happening in Austria: (link in German) [https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-l...](https://futurezone.at/netzpolitik/ausgangsbeschraenkung-a1-liefert- bewegungsprofile-an-regierung/400783565)

<comment><USER31> That sounds rather like the traffic feature of Google/Apple Maps than what's discussed in the comments here. The article you linked is very clear that it's aggregated and only segments with at least 20 people on them are reported.

If I understand the Hill article correctly, the US discussion is about the same kind of data ( _' An unnamed OSTP official told The Washington Post that they were "encouraged by American technology companies looking to leverage, aggregate, anonymized data to glean key insights for COVID-19 modeling efforts."'_), yet the majority of the comments seem to be assuming that it's about tracking individuals' locations to enable contact tracing. I don't get that impression from the Hill article at all.

What's actually being proposed, while not unproblematic, sounds rather more palatable than the authoritarian nightmare that's being discussed here.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> Just ask the NSA they already have all of it, with decades of control data too.

<comment><USER33> I guess they'd prefer to maintain appearances.

</comment></comment><comment><USER34> Cynic in me thinks that this is a request from the richest people and other elites, who want to isolate themselves from the infected, all the while blocking policies and measures that would actually help them.

I also want to point out, there are low tech solutions to track and control coronavirus spread. Simply isolate infected or suspected people, not in their homes, but in a hospital built specially for the purpose. Chinese did that.

Whether this is preferable to mass surveillance is your choice. I think it has merits and is less authoritarian overall.

</comment><comment><USER35> First person to make a phone with hardware switches for gps, bluetooth, wifi, cellular and microphone gets my money.

<comment><USER36> Also pinephone. [https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/](https://www.pine64.org/pinephone/)

Unfortunately the GNSS (GPS) is on one chip with modem, but otherwise great feature to have killswitches for cameras and comms.

[https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg](https://wiki.pine64.org/images/8/89/PinePhone_switches.jpeg)

<comment><USER37> If you don't want location tracking, you need to turn off the modem anyway.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Wouldn't it make more sense to work with the cell service providers? Surely at least some people turn off location permissions? I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data.

<comment><USER39> > I would think the cell service providers have much more reliable data.

Google tracks location history from GPS and this is accurate to at most a few meters and it can be use to check if people walked by each other on the street.

As far as I know phone service providers don't have anything similar. The cell you're connected to can cover an entire neighborhood.

<comment><USER40> That was true for GSM, but 3g & 4g have directional signal management, and track location to enable cell 2 cell handover. Information is limited inside.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> There is no way to anonymize location data at the granularity required to make sense in the context of the objectives stated.

</comment><comment><USER42> Before the Federal government gets location data, they're going to have to test to find out who has it.

<comment><USER43> "The Fed" refers to the Federal Reserve, not federal agencies, branches, or the government in general. Not to be confused with "feds," referring to federal agents individually or in general.

Also, the submission title is simply missing a word: the article uses "Federal government in talks [...]" which is a very conventional usage, whereas "Federal" as a standalone noun is considerably more rare.

<comment><USER42> Thanks for the usage analysis. Long week with too much information overload.

I'll update to at least be colloquially correct.

Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER44> The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a powerful person to account without pardon?)

The lack of trust in the US is really disappointing. Americans are so proud of its democracy---yet consistently hate and distrust the government.

I fear at the end of all of this, it'll be like the line at the end of The Big Short: "They will be blaming immigrants and poor people."

<comment><USER45> Some of the things you're saying seem contradictory _(American politicians are rarely imprisoned for their crimes, therefore Americans should be more trusting of their government? That seems completely backward)_ so forgive me if I've misunderstood you completely. With that said...

> _" The conversation is dominated by the fear of gov't abuse. So few point to > how successfully South Korea has leveraged their vast surveillance > infrastructure to tackle this problem while maintaining a vibrant democracy. > (When's the last time the US actually imprisoned a leader? Or even held a > powerful person to account without pardon?)"_

South Korea isn't all sunshine and roses either. They had numerous military coupes in post-war half of the 20th century. One of their dictators was sentenced to death for massacring hundreds of pro-democracy protestors, but was then pardoned for this. Things might not be so bad in South Korea _currently_ , but the nastier stuff is still in living memory today. South Koreans would be wise to tread carefully when empowering their government. I think the cautious attitude modern Germans have towards these matters is a good approach: _" Never again"_ rather than _" It could never happen again."_

As for the attitudes of Americans, no organization nor individual is entitled to trust; trust must be earned. Insofar as Americans don't trust their government, it's because their government hasn't earned their trust. On the contrary, the American government has frequently violated whatever little trust anybody has in it. Modern America may not have any recent military dictatorships like South Korea, but there is nevertheless a lot of disturbing unpleasantness in recent history.

<comment><USER44> I don't think you've misunderstood, and I certainly didn't mean to imply that South Korea is all "sunshine and roses".

However, given that it seems that the American gov't hasn't earned its citizens trust after ~300 years, perhaps it's time to try something very different, or at least have an open mind to suggestions. Several countries now have demonstrated a range of options: China, SK, Taiwan, Singapore. Some are authoritarian, others are democratic. It may be time to stop arguing why each case won't work here and give it a chance.

<comment><USER45> I think a lot of people would like things to work differently, but trusting the American government, which has repeatedly proved itself unworthy of trust, doesn't seem like a good first step to effecting change.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> From [https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus- pandem...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/615370/coronavirus-pandemic- social-distancing-18-months/)

 _> We don't know exactly what this new future looks like, of course. But one can imagine a world in which, to get on a flight, perhaps you'll have to be signed up to a service that tracks your movements via your phone. The airline wouldn't be able to see where you'd gone, but it would get an alert if you'd been close to known infected people or disease hot spots. There'd be similar requirements at the entrance to large venues, government buildings, or public transport hubs. There would be temperature scanners everywhere, and your workplace might demand you wear a monitor that tracks your temperature or other vital signs. Where nightclubs ask for proof of age, in future they might ask for proof of immunity—an identity card or some kind of digital verification via your phone, showing you've already recovered from or been vaccinated against the latest virus strains._

<comment><USER47> OK so people who don't carry their phone everywhere - is there no place for them in that world?

<comment><USER48> > demand you wear a monitor

Looks like that'll cover the rest of us..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER49> I wish our politicians would just fucking own it and declare their own surveillance state rather than this bullshit death of a thousand cuts public/private partnership horseshit.

</comment><comment><USER50> In czech republic we already started doing this today [0] Of course, it requires permission from the infected person

[0] [http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji- trasov...](http://www.apms.cz/novinky/mobilni-operatori-pomahaji-trasovat- polohu-nakazeneho-pouze-s-jeho-vyslovnym-souhlasem)

</comment><comment><USER51> Nope. No fucking way. Whatever temporary powers granted are akin to a drug dealers 'first one is free'.

</comment><comment><USER13> WashPo is the source, and better, article:

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white-h...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/17/white- house-location-data-coronavirus/)

</comment><comment><USER52> Looks like they wish to follow in the footsteps of South Korea:

[https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south- korean...](https://www.lawfareblog.com/lessons-america-how-south-korean- authorities-used-law-fight-coronavirus)

</comment><comment><USER53> Conveniently they already have a system that can track associations N hops from any given person.

<comment><USER17> Which is based on discrete data from a graph built from phone calls, fixed line locations and SMS/email meta data. It doesn't have (from the Snowden dump) selectors for intersecting location tracks. TBH, I just don't think that is the way the FBI finds dead drops.

<comment><USER53> Was based. They haven't been swimming in place for ten years.

<comment><USER17> They were already drowning in data, and as reported recently, basically no arrests from it in years. It can't detect terrorists -- no Americans, not foreigners, fascist or religious extremists, any better than stuff the FBI was already doing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> No comment that I've seen seems to acknowledge rejection of carrying a phone around.

In order for the data to be uncompromised there would need to be a mandate to carry the phone everywhere.

If not participating meant being cast out of society, some people might be okay with that.

How should we handle it?

</comment><comment> apk-d They could, of course, do this the way any other type of institution would do it: create an app that people would voluntarily install to gather this data. Playing by the rules isn't how governments work these days, though.

</comment><comment><USER55> Another sad +1: Italy is already using phone location data to track people and measure the effectiveness of the quarantine: [https://archive.is/6xXNu](https://archive.is/6xXNu) (archived from [https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus- cos...](https://www.corriere.it/cronache/20_marzo_17/coronavirus-cosi- lombardia-controlla-movimenti-via- cellulare-75c3d226-6897-11ea-9725-c592292e4a85.shtml?refresh_ce-cp))

</comment><comment> grey-area Best solution to this IMO is a special app which allows you to check in, prove your virus status (have it, had it, don't have it yet). Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe. You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in without showing status, those who have it have to stay home and check in for a given period. Uses biometrics to ensure a given user is using it.

Apple should be working on this.

After the virus is contained or has burned out everyone deletes the app. No feds snooping at location data required.

<comment><USER56> > Map of other users in the area so you know you're safe.

I think that would be a terrible idea. Not everyone in the world is a rational-thinking HackerNews reader ;). I would imagine it would lead to cases of mob-mentality which could be very thoughtful like community support for food/necessity delivery but also cases of unfortunate mob-mentality that could be very bad.

> You could then use that to check in to shops etc. and not be allowed in > without showing status

This is exactly what's being done in China. But without the map of your neighbours. Everyone (that cares to go out) has a 'green' 'amber' 'red' status code via Ali or Tencent. Green indicates fine, Amber indicates movement (provincial or international, sometimes inter-city depending on province) within the past 14 days, Red indicates suspected.

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> They'll never give it back

</comment><comment><USER58> Isn't this already the case? Even before the smartphone era, haven't you always been revealing your location to your local cell towers?

<comment><USER59> Your telco knows which tower you're connecting to, yes, otherwise the system would never work.

As the title makes clear, this is about the government gaining access to that information.

</comment></comment><comment><USER60> We are in a pandemic and this won't be the last. Gov'ts and society are scrambling to contain the virus, save lives, economy and society. Pandemics sow seeds of mistrust among neighbors, xenophobia and society starts falling apart. Be kind, compassionate and constructive if you can help it. This is about self-preservation. If there was ever a case for "move fast, break things", this is it. Your location data is already whored out to target you in every which way. We have tremendous data and tech capabilities. We should absolutely use them to effectively track and quarantine the contagion. For me the threat of terrorism and Patriot act was bullshit reason to erode our rights and liberties, but this is different. We should absolutely revisit these encroachments on privacy by out gov't in a post-mortem and legislate accordingly.

When it comes to gov't, I share a healthy dosage of mistrust. This is one of the reasons I support the second amendment. But remember that the gov't are of the people and for the people. It is THE institution to defend our individual selves against threats we can't individually battle. As Michael Lewis puts it, we have got to stop gutting the gov't due to reactionary fear-mongering and mistrust. We are only robbing ourselves and our children of their future. This is a reason to feel patriotic for me.

</comment><comment><USER61> I'm young and thus likely naive. But, is it not possible for a company like Mozilla to make a small tracking app that users opt in for. Then, they get rid of this when it is all over. I say Mozilla because, from what I understand, it is very privacy orientated, but any trustable company would do (ie not google, amazon, or Facebook).

</comment><comment><USER62> Well... it worked in South Korea. It would have to be temporary and only for positive tests.

</comment><comment><USER63> It would be so useful if I got a notification if I happen to have crossed paths with a person who later turned out to be infected so I can get tested too. This will preempt so many asymptotic transmissions.

Such apps are already deployed in china: [https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303](https://youtu.be/YfsdJGj3-jM?t=303)

We don't trust the government but what if it's just a private company who does it? Google already has your location info: [https://www.google.com/maps/timeline](https://www.google.com/maps/timeline) They are definitely already using the information in aggregate to provide traffic jam info. Hell I am sure facebook already does this for suggesting friends too. On the balance of privacy vs social good, I don't think there's even much slippery slope left to protect.

</comment><comment><USER64> I have just read a German article explaining that Deutsche Telekom provided 5 GB of location data to the Robert Koch Institute.

The data will be analyzed to understand the mobility of German residents.

So it's not real time tracking but it's still tracking.

</comment><comment><USER65> Never let a crisis go to waste.

</comment><comment><USER66> I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example?

<comment><USER67> > I'm curious, if I have no internet access and gps turned off on my phone > (Samsung Galaxy S7) is there still hidden shit which is tracking my > location? .. Like, is GPS not really turned off for example?

Your location can still be determined by at least your service provider based on the strength of the signal it emits as received from the (presumably various) antenna sites in the area.

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> Even if the US had real-time data about every citizen movement, what would they do with it, they cannot move huge populations of people like China can

<comment><USER60> Potentially narrow down and identify asymptomatic spreaders of the virus in early forming geo clusters. This information could lead to more effective quarantine measures early on or post containment to avoid further outbreak eruptions.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> What if every coronavirus victim voluntarily uploads their location data publically (their identity kept anonymous). Now you can, without uploading your own data anywhere, check if you have ever been in vicinity of any of them. If you have been, you can get tested and then upload your own data if that comes out positive. This way not eveyone has to share their data, only a few who have been infected.

<comment><USER70> > their identity kept anonymous

If I have your location data, you are not anonymous anymore. Especially these days where you likely spent most hours of the day in your home.

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> Is this going to be the excuse to roll tanks and missiles down the street and suspend elections too?

</comment><comment><USER72> "Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program." Milton Friedman

</comment><comment><USER73> Yeah, ok: fuck off. Send someone to interview subjects of interest like everyone else.

</comment><comment><USER74> Nice work on the title.

</comment><comment><USER75> Could we all just not carry our phones everywhere we go.

</comment><comment><USER76> This should've happened a long time ago. I really think there should be more cooperation between governments and tech companies so they can come up with solutions like this much faster like they did in China

<comment><USER77> What solutions did they come up with in China?

<comment><USER78> > What solutions did they come up with in China?

New York Times science reporter Donald G. McNeil Jr. explains in this video, and in this article:

[https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928](https://twitter.com/MikeIsaac/status/1238604080571772928)

[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus- china-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/health/coronavirus-china- aylward.html)</comment></comment></comment>


Rein in the Four Horsemen of Irreproducibility - <AUTHOR> https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01307-2 <comment><USER2> > Second, the growing use of meta-analyses, which combine results across > studies, has started to make clear that the tendency not to publish negative > results gives misleading impressions.

Mark Crislip, host of PusCast, has made a few good wisecracks on this subject. Perhaps the most poetic is (paraphrasing here): "When you mix cow pie and apple pie, you do not make the cow pie better. You make the apple pie worse."

<comment><USER3> Meta-analysis is a sound principle but undermined by selection bias. This is why every meta-analysis includes selection criteria for which studies are incorporated into the analysis. Unfortunately publication bias is systemic and biases the results.

The quote referenced is poetic and pithy but I fail to understand how it applies to meta-analysis and selection bias. What is the cow pie in this scenario?

<comment><USER2> The cow pie is biased work.

The root problem with using meta-analysis is that it just wasn't designed to work with real-world science. It generally assumes that it's being applied to an unbiased sample of unbiased results. It's now pretty well understood that the published literature is really a biased sample of (oftentimes) biased results. No amount of selection criteria can fix that; the best you can hope for is that they will yield a biased sample of unbiased results.

I'm no expert on health science, I'm just taking potshots from the peanut gallery, but I'd guess it's pretty much always better to ditch the shiny mathematical bauble and its false promise of providing an easy, simple, objective answer to an inherently subtle and complex problem, roll up your sleeves, and get to work on a proper systematic review.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I dont think this will solve the problem. The problem results from the deep barriers to proper study construction, especially in biomedical science, where enrolling patients in a controlled study is often extremely challenging. This means samples are acquired as available and not prospectively.

Does this mean we cant do "science" on such a dataset? Maybe we cant do the "usual" science, of case vs. control => p.value. But a lot of domains of science operate on uncontrolled data sets and make do with post-hoc interpretation (geology, I'm looking at you).

We need different mathematical tools and epistemologies to confront these datatsets; we cant just hope that everyone will suddenly start doing it "right".

<comment><USER5> > But a lot of domains of science operate on uncontrolled data sets and make > do with post-hoc interpretation (geology, I'm looking at you)

Bah, the real star of that sort of science is _Astronomy_!</comment></comment>


Show HN: Supercharge your browser history - <AUTHOR> http://fetching.io/extensions/browser-history-search-firefox/

<comment><USER2> hey, I tried to get the app (full disclosure we're building something in the same general ballpark - still very different), either way I was really curious to try it out but it sent me to this: app.fetching.io uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate is not trusted because the issuer certificate is unknown. (Error code: sec_error_unknown_issuer) (just thought you might want to know)

<comment><AUTHOR> Hmm, sorry to hear that :( We're not seeing that across the major browsers, I can't say why you would. It's a ghandi.net provided certificate, I assume they would work well like any other authority..

Also, I'd love to touch base on what you're building!

<comment><USER2> sure, it might be my connection; i'll email you through your site - I just realized I could have in fact done that earlier!</comment></comment></comment>


Implementing Python for DrRacket (2014) [pdf] - <AUTHOR> http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2014/4565/pdf/13.pdf <comment><USER2> The following may be a better url since it gives both the abstract and a link to the submitted paper pdf:

[http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2014/4565/](http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/volltexte/2014/4565/)

<comment><USER3> Interesting that this work is from IST / UL students in Portugal, how did it ended up in a German server?

<comment><USER2> DROPS [1] is the Dagstuhl Research Online Publication Server, and is the DOI home for papers from a number of conferences. This paper was submitted to one of the OASIcs conferences [2] in 2014 (I think).

[1] [http://drops.dagstuhl.de/](http://drops.dagstuhl.de/)

[2] [http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/institut_oasics.php?fakultaet=...](http://drops.dagstuhl.de/opus/institut_oasics.php?fakultaet=03)

<comment><USER3> Thanks

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The source code ? [https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR](https://github.com/pedropramos/PyonR)</comment>